Wednesday, September 07, 2005

MMM...MOONCAKES!

Nutty delight...you can't go anymore traditional than this!Chocolate in your mooncake anyone?Mooncakes today have come a long way from its earliest version of baked pastries filled with plain sweet lotus paste. In recent years, the local mooncake market has been so lucrative that commercial bakeries and confectioneries outdo each other annually to grab a bigger slice of the market. So much so that sometimes the newer mooncake creations seem like a culinary experiment that has gone totally awry. A case of too many chefs spoiling the cake?

Here's a peep of the good and unusual ones available.

DYNASTY OF NEW FLAVOURS

Renaissance KL boasts of mooncakes with new, unusual fillings alongside the more classical variants. The innovative fillings incorporate fruity flavours such as durian, mango or orange paste, pandan lotus paste and chopped dried persimmon encased by snow skin or the chilled, unbaked skin. These are very light on the palate, with refreshing fruity-citrusy nuances coming through clearly.

There is also snow skin mooncake with green tea and walnut paste which strikes a chord with us for its mildly bitter aftertaste. Special mention must be made of the assorted baked nuts with ham mooncakes – the nutty filling is imbued with the delicate fragrance and appetizing tanginess of ‘san kat’ (wild lime) and ‘kat peng’ (candied lime pieces) in addition to the sublime flavour of Yunnan ham.

Sweet osmanthus or ‘kwai fah’, a native Chinese flower that is favoured for its heady peachy-floral scent is used to imbue the lotus paste filling. However, the sweet osmanthus flavour is barely discernible. It would have come across better if the lotus seed paste has been used on its own instead of being added with the salted egg yolk. Still I discovered a nice peachy aftertaste lingering in my throat after eating two wedges of the said mooncake.

Much loved by Chinese tea connoisseurs, the Pu Er tea is Chef Leong’s choice in the making of his smoked ‘Pu Er’ Mixed Nuts mooncake. These robust, earthy tea leaves and hickory wood chips lent their lovely aromas to the smoked assorted nut mixture for the mooncake filling.

Other varieties available include plain red bean paste in either baked or snow skin, pandan lotus with single yolk and snow skin mooncakes with lotus paste and salted egg yolk. Spring Garden’s mooncakes are priced from RM11.00++ onwards per piece depending on the variety.